Basic Training Course Research Articles

Time Perspectives and Time Usage in a Basic Training Course in the Israeli Defence Forces

This article is based on a participant observation study of a basic training course in the Israeli Defence Forces. Attention was initially paid to a wider variety of problems facing the draftees during their initiation into the army. It soon became apparent, however, that their major difficulty involved "doing time " or making it pass as quickly as possible. This therefore became the focal concern of the study. Two aspects of the problem were analyzed—the cyclical perspective that the draftees were forced to adopt in place of the linear one usually adhered to in civilian life and the various ways (seeking information, passing time, and killing time) in which they tried to overcome the difficulties that this entailed. The results of the study are compared with those found in other analyses of army life and total institutions in general.

The Sheffield Cognitive Psychotherapy Training Course

This paper describes a basic training course in cognitive therapy for trainee psychiatrists on the Sheffield rotational scheme. Cognitive therapy, as represented by the work of Beck and Ellis, has emerged over the past decade as a potent therapeutic tool, particularly in the treatment of depression. It is a structured, directive, short-term therapy aimed at eliciting and modifying the dysfunctional cognitions which are hypothesised to play a central role in initiating and maintaining emotional disorders.

Training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation for hospital attending physicians

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals now recommends that all medical staff members participate in basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training and be so qualified. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, a program was established utilizing a modification of the American Heart Association (AHA) basic cardiac life support training course. Only 30 of 144 full-time attending physicians (21%) had been trained in CPR according to AHA standards prior to inception of the program. Eleven of 12 attendings "trained in CPR" previously but not according to AHA standards were unable to pass the written or practical examinations and required additional formal training. During a 12-month period, 144 full-time attending physicians were trained with an average investment of four hours per physician. Economic cost to the institution in faculty time was estimated at $12,000.

A statewide characterization of hospital infection control practices and practitioners.

Selected features of infection control programs among the 163 general hospitals in Tennessee were surveyed in 1976 and 1979. Each hospital but one had a designated infection control practitioner. Three-fourths of the hospitals had fewer than 200 beds and most were in rural areas. The practitioners in these small hospitals worked in an isolated professional milieu: few (4%) had attended a basic training course or were members of a national (11%) or local (16%) infection control association. They also had significantly less access to standard infection control resource publications than did practitioners in large hospitals. Use of aqueous quaternary ammonium compounds for disinfection was reported by 37% of all hospitals in 1979; 68% of hospitals routinely performed bacteriologic cultures of personnel or the environment. In contrast, only 3% of hospitals did not have a policy specifying the use of sterile closed-system drainage of indwelling bladder catheters. Although these practices varied somewhat by hospital size, the differences were not statistically significant. Modest improvement in each parameter was noted since 1976. Pathology was the most common medical specialty (34%) among chairman of infection control committees; internal medicine and pediatrics accounted for only 13%. The practice of routine microbiologic monitoring was significantly more common among hospitals with chairmen who were pathologists. The implications of these findings for national priorities in hospital infection control are discussed.

A response to the special essay-review of the basic training course for residential child care workers

A response to the special essay-review of the basic training course for residential child care workers

Special Essay-Review

The Basic Training Course for Residential Child Care Workers. By Richard H. Uhlig, Erwin H. Plumer, Julie R. Galosy, Gwen Bullard, and H. Carl Henley, Jr. Chapel Hill: Group Child Care Consultant Services, University of North Carolina School of Social Work, 1977. Complete course (2300 pp.), $65.00. Workshops for potential users are being sponsored in 1978 by the Children's Bureau--contact Development Associates, Inc., 2924 Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia 22204.

The application of safety teaching to practical work in further education establishments: With reference to basic engineering training courses

Approximately 10,000 students attend full-time basic engineering training courses in further education establishments in Great Britain. A study of the teaching of safety was made in respect of engineering workshop practice classes in order to explore whether the practical significance of classroom teaching was adequately demonstrated to students at a personal level; whether safety was taught in a positive way particularly in connection with skills which students would use in industry; and to show how safety teaching in engineering workshop practice classes might be improved. Strong evidence of inadequacy in safety teaching was found in the responses of 360 students in eleven establishments to a questionnaire/checklist on workshop procedures. Scores were awarded for ‘safe/unsafe’ responses to items dealing with five categories of workshop procedures which are generally recognised as good safety practice. The scores revealed highly significant differences in the several groups of students that were tested. The differences pointed to variations in the teaching of the lecturers concerned. The overall findings from the study suggested that safety teaching would be improved if (a) the safety knowledge of lecturers was improved and (b) if further education establishments insisted on positive application by workshop lecturers of the safety taught in the classroom.

An experimental evaluation of a temporal decay in the prediction of performance

Data were obtained to test the explanatory power of an explanation of the temporal decay in the relationship between predictor batteries and performance criteria assessed at different stages of practice. An experimental group consisting of 67 college students enrolled in a basic flight training course leading to the FAA private pilot's certificate and an equivalent control group of 74 college students interested in aviation served as subjects. An ability battery administered before and after training to all subjects indicated that significantly greater changes occurred in the mean ability scores within the experimental group than within the control group. These results were interpreted as indicating that the temporal decay in the predictive validities of ability batteries may be attributable to changes in the subjects rather than to changes in the “importance” of ability measures as had previously been hypothesized. The implications of these findings for selection and placement programs are discussed.

IN-SERVICE EVOLUTION

The English provisions for in-service teacher education, as this article well describes, differ from those of continental Europe by their greater variety of patterns and sources of initiative. American readers will note with interest that the local school authorities (LEA's) have taken on a share of the responsibility for this training. The role of teacher colleges in the in-service programs, and the potential benefits thereof for the instructors in charge of basic training courses, are discussed in detail.

Integrated Basic Training Courses in the College

MR LONGDEN'S article in your November issue, on College‐based, integrated basic training courses and the note on Mr C. R. English's speech at the Oxford Regional Advisory Conference about utilisation of colleges led to this letter. The interesting course commented upon by Mr Longden is presumably one he has organised at Mid‐Warwickshire College of Further Education. In my view, however, Mr Longden takes too restricted a view in only considering a year's course, instead of a much longer period, and I wish to expand on this.